What Is This Thing, Called Love? What Is This Thing Called, Love?

Today's article will be asking the question; what is love? Oh blimey! I don't flipping know. The question just came into my head and I thought I would go with it. I don't know what it is. I'm just a bloke. How the heck, I mean hell would I know?

Oi! You just said heck. You recently claimed that you never use the word. Make your mind up John Boy.

It slipped out Mr Flipping Perfect. These things happen, and my mind is on a serious subject of which I know very little so perhaps I wasn't concentrating and allowed my American readers to subconsciously influence my choice of word. I have crossed it out. Happy now?

I was in the supermarket the other day, checking out some of the women who shop there prices of goods, when I heard a married couple talking to each other. They had obviously been married a long time, because they spoke in disrespectful tones, a bickering way. Not so much a conversation, more a series of tuts and groans. You probably know what I mean, even though I am not describing it too well. Let's just say they had the resigned air of a too long married pair.

As I wandered the aisles I saw the same couple many times. Except it wasn't the same couple. It was simply that I was observing the same type of behaviour patterns time and again in different people. People who by the very nature of their relationship had almost evolved into one person. I might be wrong, but I think it is what happens in a long relationship or marriage. Two becomes one. They know each other so well.
And yet they bicker constantly. It is almost as though they are arguing with themselves.

When I was married many years ago, we were together for seventeen years and during the whole of that time we argued. Nothing serious, just little things, but it was bickering all the time. In the end it was this that destroyed the marriage. I couldn't bear the thought of carrying on like it for the rest of my days. And yet I loved her, and I am sure she loved me. Just like the long married couples I was observing in the supermarket. Who I am sure loved each other.

Now here comes the question again; what is love? Well I have just told you that I loved my ex wife. So I must know what love is. I'm afraid not. I described the feeling as love because that is what I think the feeling is. But I don't know for sure. Maybe it is simply an hormonal surge of feeling, the excitement of first meeting someone. Maybe love is like an adrenalin rush. Maybe it is an adrenalin rush? That is why it cools. It does cool doesn't it? Then becomes a familiarity. And what does familiarity breed?

This is a dreadful essay. I don't know where it is going. The subject is too vast. Who am I, a failure in the subject, to attempt to expound knowledgeably? Me, who has been hurt so many times, and let me be honest, has hurt in return. Who am I to tackle this subject? I shall tell you. I am a cynic.

There was a time when I would fall in love at the drop of a hat. What does that say about love? Looking back now I believe I was looking for approbation. Someone to show me I meant something, was someone. I could go into this more deeply but I don't want to bore you.

Anyway if love does exist, I'm talking now about being 'in love' I shall not be letting it into my life again. I am too old now to deal with the inevitable heartbreak that has always followed in it's path.

I shall, as I have always done, love with all my heart, but I shall not again be what is known as 'being in love'. It sounds a bit sad doesn't it? But truth to tell I feel better for the decision, especially now I know I can keep to it.

To conclude this mish mash. I would just tell you, that I do know a few people who have been married for years, and their love, if that it what it is, has grown stronger and stronger as the years go by. But sadly I know of many couples who are stuck in a rut, and are too weak to get out of it.

Naturally, I love you. You mean the world to me. I am a lover, but that has a whole different meaning.





Hallo again. I have come back to edit. What a miserable old git I am being. Please ignore me. Get out there and get loving! Love is a splendid thing. We need more of it in the world. Yes I have changed my mind. This is my blog! I love you. Men and women. Obviously not the men in the same way. Not that there is anything wrong with that, he adds hastily. xxx